Continuing the discussion from MasterCard and contingency. As a stationery geek, I have a love hate relationship with cheques - I like looking at the different designs and the feel of the paper, but dread the fact some public services still insist on using them.
The first cheque I’ve ever received in my life was in 2018, issued by a law firm. Pre cheque imaging days, it took 1-2 hours to walk to a branch, queue up and wait to get a cheque cashed in.
Last time I needed to write a cheque: yesterday, but cheque book went AWOL.
Santander and Lloyds International gave me a cheque book which I did use a few times in Jersey. As back in Jersey a lot of people still like using Cheques.
When I next go back over I will grab them and take some pics.
Where they are, I don’t know, but I should have TSB NI, Citibank (£ and $), Prudential US, Charles Schwab, Girobank, Cahoot, Alliance & Leicester, Woolwich, Child & Co, Nationwide, HSBC, Credit Agricole (Britline and Pyrenees Orientale), BNP. They will turn up sometime, probably during next year’s house move.
The actual cheques were the standard rectangular French design (taller but narrower than UK ones). No photos online and sadly I had to return unused cheques when I left, but they had a drawing of the view of the river and the telepherique on them, a similar view to this one.
I recently received the Charles Schwab cheque book. Functional, that’s about it. I do like that they add a Transaction Register, which shows a 3 year calendar behind it.
If you’re keen, you can probably order custom design checks, which are a thing in America. I have several hundred Prudential ones “somewhere” as they didn’t ask how many I’d be likely to use.
Anyone remember cheque books having a 12 month calendar on a page at the back? If you went into the bank and wrote a cheque to “cash”, the teller would use their pen to punch a hole through that day’s date so you couldn’t cash a second cheque. NatWest used to do that in the 1980s.
